Adventist view on the Nature of Christ

[hobie]

I am studying this subject on the Adventist view of the Nature of Christ, and giving what I am finding, but want everyone's input.

Here is what Adventist theologians and leaders as well as members, tend to lean toward, the postlapsarian view affirming that Christ?s human nature was fully human, could be tempted, and yet remained sinless. This allows Him to be both a perfect example and a perfect Redeemer

Postlapsarian (Fallen Nature) ? Christ?s human nature was identical to ours after the Fall, inheriting weaknesses and a predisposition to sin. This view emphasizes that His ability to be tempted from without and remain sinless is the basis for His example and atonement

Adventists hold to the belief that Christ took on the nature of man after the Fall, in its weakened state. Adventists believe that Christ, the 'last Adam,' possessed on His human side, a nature like that of the 'first man Adam,' a nature free from every defiling taint of sin, but capable of responding to sin, and that nature was handicapped by the debilitating effects of four thousand years of sin's inroads on man's body and nervous system and environment. He took the flesh of sinful man, and overcame where man failed, overthrew sin in the flesh. He accepted the limitations and conditions of our common humanity.

Jesus took Adams human nature after the fall. But Jesus did not inherit sinful tendencies from Adam - that is, Jesus did not have a tendency to sin. Christ inherited our physical weaknesses, for example, Christ had to sleep when he got tired. He had to eat when he got hungry and drink when he got thirsty. He inherited our physical limitations but not our sinful inclinations.

Physically, Christ was like us - feeling pain, frail, weak, prone to get sick if we dont take care of our bodies, and under the consequences of aging. But morally, Christ could be tested by temptation as scripture shows us but did not have our ungodly desires or sinful inclinations.

Here is a explanation by ?ngel Manuel Rodr?guez on the Adventist church view of the nature of Christ :

Our Adventist Statement of Fundamental Beliefs summarizes that which the church holds to be biblical truth around the world. It says: "God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ [John 1:1-3, 14]. . . . Forever truly God, He became also truly man, Jesus the Christ [Heb. 2:14]. . . . He lived and experienced temptation as a human being, but perfectly exemplified the righteousness and love of God [Heb. 4:15]. In infinite love and mercy "God made Christ who knew no sin, to be sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21).

Those statements attest that, first, Jesus was divine; second, that He became what He was not, truly human; and, third, that He knew no sin, and was without sin even though He faced severe temptations.

And here from the SDA Bible Commentary: "In taking upon Himself man's nature in its fallen condition, Christ did not in the least participate in its sin. He was subject to the infirmities and weaknesses by which man is encompassed, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are. And yet He "knew no sin." He was the Lamb "without blemish and without spot." Could Satan in the least particular have tempted Christ to sin, he would have bruised the Saviour's head. As it was, he could only touch His heel. Had the head of Christ been touched, the hope of the human race would have perished. Divine wrath would have come upon Christ as it came upon Adam. . . . We should have no misgivings in regard to the perfect sinlessness of the human nature of Christ.-- The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1131. {7ABC 447.3}

[Kevin H]

The Christian church argued for centuries over the nature of Christ, and eventually (I believe through the leading of the Holy Spirit) came to the conclusion that Jesus had his own unique nature that is not like Adam's before the fall and us after the fall. That there are elements of both, but that he cannot be described as having either. Jesus needed rest, food, water, could catch cold etc. but he did not have any tendency to sin. He did not have the "sinful nature." That we are sinners because we have the sinful nature, and Jesus did not have this. 

For some specifics, all sin is selfishness, and even our best is still tainted with selfishness. Jesus did not have any taint of selfishness. I like the Ellen White quote "There is in man a disposition to esteem himself more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place and often this results in evil surmisings and bitterness of spirit." I also like what the philosopher/poet Eli Sigel when he said "There is in every person a disposition to think they are for themselves by making less of the outside world." I understand these to be perfect definitions for the sinful nature. Jesus did not have this disposition in himself in the slightest. 

As a majority (no, not all of them) of our pioneers questioned the trinity, they ended up making Jesus something less than God himself. As they were seeing the importance of returning to the law of God, especially  the neglected Sabbath, and also trying to understand Jesus from a non-trinitarian position, we made the error of seeing Jesus' role being more our example. We sadly gave up the traditional understanding as the church came to over the centuries. In our "new" view of Jesus, we saw him as sharing with us the nature of us after the fall, and showing us that we can indeed over come. When you don't have the trinity which gives a tension between the members of the Godhead, we end up picking one aspect of the trinity and make that aspect to be God in total. While they don't use our language, when we look at Eastern Religions, they are worshiping God the Holy Spirit as God in total. Here in the west, we tend to make God the Father, God as power and authority as God in total, and the natural result is to preach the law the law the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa, and we end up making Jesus's role to be fully in submission to the Father and to the law the law the law just the way that we need to submit and to teach us that we can submit to this level. This lead to the 1888 crisis. 

Mrs. White took a lot of the blame of the 1888 crisis on herself, that she did not share the issues of the great controversy as she should have. In response she moved the trinity from an unpopular idea that only a minority of our members believed to the center of her developing the great controversy visions into a philosophy. 

Many of our members had trouble with this. Now, another debated issue in our church was how does inspiration work, whether the "Fundamentalists" were right or wrong.  Leave this thought here for a moment. 

Many of our leaders were shocked as to how Mrs. White gave a fair amount of support to the message of Jones and Wagner. They wanted her to uphold the tradition that developed in Adventism that lead to 1888. Many of these, such as Elder Butler and his nephew Elder Washburn needed to take some time off to wrestle with this issue. While Butler and Washburn were in agreement in their dislike of the 1888 message, Elder Butler was an anti-Fundamentalist and had a more liberal view of how inspiration worked. His nephew, Elder Wagner, was a very strict  Fundamentalist. I do not have the background or position to do this study, but both men struggled with their anti-1888 message views and how to become more accommodating to the 1888 message. I wonder what the similarities and differences between the conclusion of each man's struggle. Anyway, at least Elder Washburn came to a conclusion that was still very much the views that lead up to 1888, yet, somehow gives an acknowledgement and compromise with 1888. Elder Washburn never accepted the trinity, and from what I've seen does not appear to have any major changes from his views before to after 1888. He and others have come to this view and has through the years evolved this thought into what has taken the names of say "Historic Adventists" and "Last Generation Adventists." Elder Andresen came from this flavor of Adventism, although he wrote to and visited Mrs. White to ask if she had become a trinitarian and was convinced that she indeed did become a trinitarian, and he accepted a version of the trinity, but fit his "trinitarian" views to otherwise fit this version of Adventism, and he brought the trinity into this version of Adventism, and did understand Jesus, although God, to have had the sinful nature while on earth. 

On the other hand, Mrs. White took more of a traditional understanding of the trinity (although, it appears to look more like one of the theories of the trinity that we find within Eastern Orthodoxy rather than Roman Catholic.) She began writing about the nature of Jesus. She liked the views of one theologian (I don't really remember his name, but it always reminds me of the name of the author Herman Melville,) But whether she's quoting this author, or others, they all hold in common that they were strong supporters and describers of the orthodox view I tried to explain in the first paragraph. She picked some of what should have been the best quotes of this orthodox view. Sadly, there are those who nick-pick her words to try to make them more align with Washburn and Andresen's view, and they need to ignore the sources that she was copying. Despite those who want to align her words with Washburn/Andresen's view, the mainline Adventist church turned to the orthodox understanding of the nature of Christ. 

In the 1950s there was a discussion with some Evangelical leaders that lead to the book "Questions on Doctrine". One question they had was how do Seventh-day Adventists understand the nature of Jesus. I understand Questions on Doctrine to have some strong and weak points. I've sided with our scholars who suggest that our leaders should have admitted how many of our pioneers questioned the trinity, but as we studied and grew, we came to accept the trinity and as we accepted the trinity we came to accept the traditional orthodox view of the nature of Jesus, and give the Ellen White quotes that we find in the back of Questions on Doctrine, and simply leave it there.  But sadly, the leaders, trying to impress the Evangelicals, tended to focus on the divinity of Jesus at the expense of the humanity of Jesus, and thus ended up giving a half truth. Andresen and others then pointed out this unbalanced view, but their followers (and somewhat Andresen, but from what I've seen and been taught, more so the followers) have latched on to the missing part of the truth at the expense of the part of the truth that our leaders over did in this discussion. Sadly, this has caused us to divide the truth into two halves that some of us latch totally on to one side or the other.  (Also, I don't know if this had happened by the 1950s, but in recent years, I've been noticing among Evangelicals a gradual drifting away from the orthodox view and more to the unbalanced view we mistakenly fell into when giving the Questions on Doctrine discussion.)

[Hanseng]

9 hours ago, Kevin H said:

The Christian church argued for centuries over the nature of Christ, and eventually (I believe through the leading of the Holy Spirit) came to the conclusion that Jesus had his own unique nature that is not like Adam's before the fall and us after the fall.

Very sensible way of looking at it.

A.T. Jones introduced me to the fallen nature view through his book "The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection."As I recall, he relied heavily upon this verse to justify his view:

 14 ¶  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15  And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebrews 2

Most SDA who hold to the view espoused in the Consecrated Way also believe in sinless perfectionism. They reason that since Jesus overcame sin with a nature like ours, we can do the same. Any true Christian hopes to overcome sin.  The pragmatists, based on their own experience, recognize total victory over sin with a fallen nature is akin to moving a mountain by faith. Not necessarily impossible but no indication it has ever happened. Sinless perfectionists simply say that this experience is reserved for the final generation.

In addition to the text from Hebrews 2, cited above, Romans 8 succors sinless perfectionists. Jesus was sent  "in the likeness of sinful flesh." Context indicates that "sinless flesh" is that described in Romans 7. People with sinful flesh are, by nature, captive to the law of sin. We are unable to perform that which is good. We do evil that we don't ant to do. This is the law of sin and death. It works in the being of all born into this world, except Jesus.

 Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14: 11-15) and Elijah (James 5:17) all possessed passions like every other human. "Like passions" is the way the KJV puts it. Paul refused worship from the Lycaonians due to having a nature like theirs. Even though Elijah shared a nature with every other sinner, he was still translated. He certainly wasn't sinless, nor was he a part of the final generation.  There we have an example of a man who was not sinless and was translated.

The Greek word translated as "like passions" is not the same word used in Romans 8, which says Jesus was sent in the "likeness of sinful flesh" "Likeness" has a wide range of meaning, including  "to resemble," as evinced by Judges 8:18 in the LXX. The Greek word comparing  Paul, Barnabas and Elijah to other humans compared oranges and oranges. The word translated as likeness in Romans 8:3 does not. It  is also used in Philippians 2:7 Jesus was made in the "likeness of men" [who all have sinful flesh]. Paul refused worship because his nature had passions like ours. Jesus did not refuse worship because he did not share the passions of fallen man, i.e., the law of sin and death was not at work in Him.

[Hanseng]

13 minutes ago, Hanseng said:

Context indicates that "sinless flesh" is that described in Romans 7.

Should be "sinful flesh" is that described in Romans 7.